Working With Suicidal Clients: Not Business as Usual

In this introduction to a special series of articles on working with suicidal clients, we note that much of the recent growth in theory and research pertaining to suicidal individuals has been contributed by cognitive-behavioral theorists and researchers. This work has established that suicidal people manifest important cognitive vulnerabilities that can be addressed in therapeutic interventions specifically designed for them. Studies to date have produced outcomes that support this framework. We provide brief previews of the collection of articles that follow, which cover safety planning, protocols for evaluating risk, the utility of health behavior theory for informing treatment, mindfulness-based approaches for suicidality, developmental and family considerations, intensive inpatient CBT for individuals in the military, integrated interventions for substance abuse and suicidal behaviors, and coping with the impact of client suicide. We conclude that clinicians are now in a position to begin moving beyond a “therapy as usual” mindset in working with suicidal clients.